Rogue Fires

Raytheon and the Marine Corps have tested the latest innovation in the Marine Corps’ effort to integrate antiship weapons into its arsenal—a driverless truck. The Remotely Operated Ground Unit for Expeditionary (ROGUE) Fires Vehicle is an unmanned missile launcher built on a joint light tactical vehicle chassis from Oshkosh Defense. The ROGUE system can also be equipped with rocket artillery. A November 2020 test of the Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) launched a Naval Strike Missile, jointly manufactured by Raytheon and Kongsberg, to test the concept for coastal defense. In principle, the ROGUE launch vehicle could also be operated from the flight decks of amphibious ships, a concept the Marine Corps tested with manned vehicles in 2019. At press time, there was no word on any impressive-sounding acronyms for that concept.